been waving a match underneath a stick of dynamite, and the dynamite was now letting her know it didn’t appreciate it.
Nor did it escape me that the judge was exploiting the situation to try to put his strong boot on Katherine’s throat. Smart move on his part. It would save him from having to crush her like a bug in front of the whole court.
I peeked at her. Instead of looking like she wanted to crawl under her seat, she appeared ready to leap across the table and slap him.
She said, “Are you trying to blame me?”
The stick of dynamite was squeezing the ball harder and faster, and I realized that Katherine might enjoy this game of taunting judges, but it wasn’t my idea of great fun. Before either of them could say another word, I quickly intervened. “What’s your decision on our request, Your Honor? I’m asking on the record.”
Carruthers placed the ball in the center of his desk. He stared at it awhile, and I got the point. That ball represented Katherine. If it weren’t for that little piece of rubber, he’d probably rip her arms off and beat her over the head with them.
His eyes shifted to me for the first time. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, Drummond? To discuss your request.”
In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, the judge has a deep, resonant voice. The type of voice that batters its way through the air and penetrates your skin and bounces right off your bones.
I coughed a bit, and bent forward. “Miss Carlson and I feel it’s imperative to meet with those two men.”
“Then you better have a more compelling legal justification than the one I read.”
Katherine said, “We do. Neither of us were present for the Article 32 pre-court-martial investigation. We haven’t been given the right to full discovery. If this request is denied, we’ll consider it certain grounds for an appeal.”
Her tone was respectful, but she might as well have stuck her middle finger in his face. When a lawyer brazenly threatens to take a judge’s decision and use it for an appeal – no matter how politely it’s couched – that’s pretty much the same thing as… Well, actually, it’s worse than that. The truth is I can’t think of anything as bad.
A big angry snort erupted from Carruthers’s nose and his body jerked forward. His slitty eyes were dead on her pretty face. “Was that a threat?”
She coolly said, “Yes, Your Honor, I threatened you. Respectfully, of course.”
“Well, I-”
I saw a vision of two trains racing full speed at each other, so I said, nearly yelling, “Please let me explain. We’ve just learned that Moran and Jackson have knowledge that could be crucial to the proof of our client’s innocence. Unless we’re able to obtain that knowledge in a timely manner our case will be fatally weakened. Our client will be denied a reasonable defense. We’ll have no choice but to appeal.”
His head cocked to the side, and he scratched his ear. “Go on.”
I looked at Katherine and she nodded for me to take over. In fact, she conceded the discussion so hastily I wondered if she was using me to play a little game here; her version of good cop/bad cop. Only in this case, a more accurate name would be brave cop/chicken cop.
Anyway, I swallowed and said, “We believe the statements provided by Moran and Jackson were physically coerced.”
Carruthers contemplated that a moment. He picked up the rubber ball and began kneading it again. This time, I was the pitiful little thing trapped inside that meaty fist.
“You’d better have a reasonable basis for this suspicion.”
“We do. Yesterday I was interrogated by the same officers who questioned Moran and Jackson. As you can see by my physical condition, they have… shall we say, a very persuasive way about them.”
The room was so dark that he had to get up and walk to the light switch and turn it on. He circled around a few times, inspecting the damage.
He returned to his seat. “Look, Drummond, it’s not news that Korean interrogation techniques aren’t as humane as ours. But if you’re considering a dismissal on that basis, go study your precedents. American law doesn’t recognize the misbehavior of foreign police authorities operating on their own soil as grounds for dismissal.”
“I’m aware of that, Your Honor. A CID officer was present for my beatings.”
“That’s lamentable, but CID can’t be expected to control the behavior of the ROK police, either. Same precedents apply.”
“Agreed, but he participated. And the same CID officer was present for the interrogations of Moran and Jackson. In fact, he’s the lead witness for the prosecution.”
“Then file a complaint against him. But the fact that he struck you doesn’t lead to the conclusion he beat the other two.”
“No sir, it doesn’t. Except there was a point in my interrogation when he and his ROK counterpart thought I was unconscious. I overheard them refer to the beatings they administered to Private Jackson.”
Carruthers was obviously familiar with the case file. “This is Bales you’re referring to?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
He began bouncing the rubber ball on his desk. “Watch it, Drummond. Of course you want to discredit the star witness, but I don’t allow attorneys to assassinate the reputations of good people. Not in my court. Bales is the youngest CW3 in the Criminal Investigation Division. He has a record any police officer would die for. Let me put this frankly. Don’t be pulling any crap here.”
“May I be equally frank?”
“You’d better be, Drummond.”
“Okay. Here’s the thing. For three hours before Bales and his ROK counterpart interrogated me, a long line of Korean officers kept appearing with keys to my cell. I got my ass thrashed more times than I could count. Can I prove that? No. Then I got dragged in to see Bales and his ROK buddy Inspector Choi. They knocked me around so hard they cold-cocked me. Will I ever be able to prove it? No. Enough guys in that precinct got a piece of my ass that there’ll be a wall of silence harder than a woodpecker’s lips.”
“Then what do you hope to accomplish with Moran and Jackson?”
“We need to ask them if they got their asses crushed, too. We need to know if their testimony was coerced or not.”
“Assume for the sake of argument they claim it was coerced. Will you be able to prove that in court?”
“It’s doubtful, Your Honor. Choi has already filed a fabricated statement that claims Jackson was beaten up by his cellmate. I don’t know what Moran’s story is.”
“Then what’s your point? Why should I permit this if it’ll still prove irrelevant?”
“Because it could lead us down other paths.”
“And do you want to tell me what those other paths are?”
Carruthers, I suddenly realized, was considerably smarter than I’d given him credit for. I think he suspected from the beginning that we had some larger ulterior motive here.
I looked at Katherine and she looked at me, and we both realized that if we confided to Carruthers that we suspected the Itaewon Police Precinct of a mass conspiracy that included the massacre the day before, he’d wring both our necks.
Katherine, being the lead counsel, took over. “No, Your Honor, not at this time.”
He leaned back in his chair. He was still brooding and bouncing that little ball on his desk. “But you expect me to approve your request?”
“Yes sir,” Katherine said, and it did not escape my notice that she sounded and looked as meek as a housebroken kitten. Suspiciously so, in fact. She’d apparently switched to good cop/good cop routine.
Smart girl. There’s a time for in-your-face, and there’s a time for laying back.
The ball stopped bouncing and the judge bent forward again.
“All right, I’ll let you know my judgment. But if I allow it, the prosecutor has to be present. Moran and Jackson are his witnesses and he has the right to share in the fruits of your discovery. Another thing – call it point one: I want to know whatever you find out, as soon as you find it out. I don’t want to get into court and have any big surprises. Not on this case. Capisch?”
